Apex vs Reef Angel controllers, which one is more reliable?

[Oscarmk]

I have been thinking about getting a controller for my tank for the past 2 weeks, mainly because I want a fail safe, but also because I like the remote monitoring and control.

I was ready to buy the Apex, because until yesterday I though the only 2 controllers on the market where RKL and Apex, of which AFAIK Apex is the clear winner, now I know there is also GHL Profilux and Reef Angel, after some reaearch I decided to focus on RA vs Apex.

Unfortunatelly every topic I could find comparing them both, focused on the ease of programming it, price and degree of control, based on my research I know the RA is a little harder to program, you get a little more for the same price and it is way more customizable. I am a software enginner and I am now very inclined to get the RA, however I can't find anything about which one is more reliable, and by that I mean which one has the better hardware and firmware. Because the point of getting a controller for me is reliability, this is my main concern.

Anyone has any experience with the Reef Angel?, I have been going over the schematics and it looks pretty solid, but the fact that it seems to be a lot less popular than the Apex raises concerns to me about reliability. Links to good discussions on RA vs Apex are also appreciated.

 

[Ben]

I've had a reef angel for a few years and I've had a lot of interaction with Roberto the main person for development and support. He's a good guy and very responsive and willing to help his customers. The are some very big fundamental differences between RA and Apex but here's my attempt to boil them down.

RA is open source. Code and Hardware. This means you can really make it do anything you are capable of making it do. For some people this is a game changer.
RA has pretty decent local and remote accessibility if you go with the WiFI but it's not anywhere close to Apex Fusion. Also, not all of the settings are not update-able via the web interface.
RA is a small company working or pretty thin profit margins. You're not going to see the marketing and resources that you see Neptune putting into Apex.

The RA firmware is all Arduino c++ based so there are a ton of resources out there to help you if you want to extend the firmware with additional functionality. The base setup for the controller has a wizard to build your main "sketch" that you then tweak as desired. It's pretty simple to work with and much more flexible than Apex control scripts. The Apex control scripts are more like writing ip chains filter rules than real code. There's only if/then and it's all fall through to the next statement.

As far as hardware all the Ra schematics are there on the webpage. Just download and install the free version of CadSoft Eagle to see what you're working with. The primary microprocessor is Atmega Mega2560 chip and all the peripherals are connected via I2C except for the Wifi which is serial and the LCD which is on SPI. The hardware has been very reliable from my experience.

 

[Oscarmk]

@Ben wrote:

Thanks Ben for your feedback, I am digging deeper into the RA forums and functionality to make my decision. Logic would tell me that the hardware should be better in the Reef Angel, given than they are not spending money on advertising and it is open source (meaning less money spent on engineers), plus low margins, but still looking into that. Good to hear that your experience with the hardware has been very reliable.

 

[Ben]

There is also OSPOM which has been through a slow start but they finally shipped to beta members a few weeks ago. I'm part of that. My experience has been good so far. It's raspberry pi based with arduino expansion via usb. Once I finally get some free time I'll integrate the RA i2c modules and also some mqtt work that I've been working on with my own sensors.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[Oscarmk]

@Ben wrote:

Thanks Ben, I'll have to check that one out too, I still haven't decided on what controller to buy.

 

[Oscarmk]

Is there another controller that can also track the power consumption of the outlets?, that is a feature I am quite interested in from the new Apex EB832, afaik that is really the only way there is right now to be alerted if a pump failed?, as I understand you can only know if the outlet is on or off, but you would never know if a pump is still working.

 

[Mike R]

Neptune displayed inline flow meters at Macna 2015, but I haven't seen then available for purchase yet. I assume they had some sort of issue that has delayed the release date. You could always use a float switch attached to a breakout box that would alert you if the return pump isn't working (due to the increased water level in the sump). A faulty top off system could also give you the same result, but you'd want to be alerted either way IMO.

 

[Ben]

RA and OSPOM could both do flow meters or outlet power consumption as long as you have the proper sensor to gather that data. For instance I have an amperage detection board that is inline on the mains power going to my lights that puts out an analog signal that I read via an RA analog pin. If no analog pins were available or I wanted more granularity for amperage per AC port I would use a 4 or 8 12bit I2C analog chip and then communicate with that from RA via I2C. The multi-port water level sensor for the RA does this.

 

[Oscarmk]

Thank you both for your solutions, those would definitely also work. I am at the moment leaning towards the new apex with the bar 832, but still deciding, been a little busy lately.